Going nowhere

Happy Sukkot! Moadim lesimcha! Do you have any trips planned?

That’s what everyone seems to be asking during these days. And every year—twice a year, at Pesach and Sukkot, I feel pressure to Go Somewhere. So we make a plan, and we get everyone ready to go and we pack the food and the water and the diapers and the hats and the sweaters and the toys and books in case we need a distraction and on and on and on and we try to work the trip around the naptime and . . .

And then we get where we are going and Everyone Must Have Fun because we have put in the effort and it is a holiday, after all, and holidays are Supposed to Be Fun. Seven days of nonstop, action-packed fun.

This year, the morning after Yom Kippur, a friend suggested that a few of us go on an outing with our kids. I was still really drained from the fast and the emotional experience of the day before. And I have noticed before that my kids don’t have much fun on structured outings—they like to go at their own pace. And they don’t like new experiences. Or seeing their friends in unexpected places. Or walking. Or people.

But hey! It might be fun!

* * *

Later, toward the end of the outing, I called my husband on the phone as I stood outside a public bathroom waiting for my girls.

“I hate them. These are bad children. I want to leave them here.”

                                                                         

“It’s true,” he said, soothingly. “Can you get home with them, or do you need me to come get you?”

I managed to get home with them. And spent the rest of the day recovering sulkily.

My husband observed later that when I made the decision to take the kids on a trip, I wasn’t considering my own needs, and I wasn’t considering my children’s needs.

And I had to laugh, because what else was there to consider? It’s not like our friends needed us to be there. What I had in mind when I planned this misguided adventure was what I was Supposed to Do. I felt like going on an outing was what we should be doing with our free time, and then I tried to twist us all into that plan. The results were pretty appalling.

* * *

So now Sukkot is upon us, and I think of the season’s greeting: Moadim lesimcha. It comes from the liturgy and it means, literally, “holidays for joy." Holidays are for experiencing joy, for tasting God’s goodness and feeling gratitude and pleasure.

And so this year, I am thinking, what brings our family joy? Not “what do most people do,” not “what do we have the opportunity to do,” not “what do other people want us to do”—what brings us joy?

We joined our friends for brunch at their house. And when I felt tired and overwhelmed by all the people and activity, I exited the sukkah and left my kids and husband playing (with ride-on toys and a guitar, respectively) and went downstairs and read a magazine on the couch.

A friend planned a sukkah hop yesterday evening. We marched the kids from sukkah to sukkah around our neighborhood, singing and drumming and enjoying snacks at each stop. And when my kids melted down at the second sukkah, I took them home and we waited for everyone to end up at our place.

And there, on my roof under the beautiful sukkah that my husband built and decorated with twinkly lights, I felt joy. A handful of neighbors and their children came, and we drank wine and played with ride-on toys (respectively) in the cool evening air and enjoyed amazing views of the city. I was home, my kids and I were surrounded by people we like, and we were happy.

Instead of planning family outings, I am going to try to take each of my girls on little one-on-one trips. That’s something I always wish I had more time to do, and now I have the opportunity.

Right now it is late morning and I am sitting in our sukkah with my laptop. B.A. and our neighbors’ daughter are jumping on the couch next to me. The girls are across the hall playing playing with the other neighbor kids. Everyone runs back and forth between the two sukkahs. And In the other sukkah, my neighbor sits enjoying her own quiet time.

So we are going nowhere this Sukkot. But we are in our sukkah, which is our whole world right now.